In a straw poll taken at last night’s Loudoun Tea Party meeting members made it very clear that they do not share their leader’s choice for Congress in the 10th district. Earlier this week Loudoun Tea party leader John Jaggers endorsed Barbara Comstock for Congress. A spokesman for the Tea Party said they thought it necessary to poll their members because of the controversy surrounding that endorsement. At the meeting Howie Lind was the overwhelming choice for Congress among the group. Barbara Comstock received only two votes and Bob Marshall received three votes. The rest of the group who voted, 10 people, chose Howie Lind. The other Congressional candidates did not receive any votes. Not everyone participated in the straw poll survey.
In the race for Senate Shak Hill was the big winner with 9 votes. Ed Gillespie received three votes, Chuck Moss got one vote and two members voted ‘none of the above’. In choosing their preferred method for nominating a candidate, 9 preferred a convention, 4 preferred a primary, and one choose a mass meeting.
8 comments
Well, ten people disagreed at least.
I really hoped that the REAL poll showing Barbara leading Howie 44:3 would stop the ridiculous straw polls, but, alas, they continue. This is the most ridiculous yet. 15 people? Seriously? Thank you for reporting actual numbers.
At the many Meet and Greets that Barbara has had over the past few months there are usually 50 -75 or over 100 people and Republicans of all stripes, including business people, young Republicans, Tea Party members, and so on. I don’t think she has taken straw polls but you can guess the results. Similarly the Republican women’s clubs don’t usually take straw polls at their events – and Barbara has had to miss many of those because of her duties in Richmond fighting against Medicaid expansion or scheduling conflicts – but if they did conduct straw polls – you could imagine the results at many of them where Barbara has strong support. Perhaps I’m unaware of Howie having meet and greet events hosted for him around the District where people open their homes and invite their neighbors – but it seems he’s a candidate in search of a home…
Yawn. A meeting of 15 Loudoun Country TEA Party members is no more reflection of the entire group than that of Jagger’s endorsement. All these straw polls are a bit ridiculous because everyone of them has varied based on location. The candidates with home town advantage and who has gotten their local supporters there have won all of them. Firehouse primary polls are tough to gage because they don’t have the turnout of a regular primary (impossible to know turnout and the type of voters to show) and don’t have a set number of credentialed delegates like a convention where the voting population is readily known and can be easily polled. The only poll that counts is the one on April 26 and that will be driven by whatever campaign gets the most folks to show up. Straw polls of 15 -50 people are a joke because the sample is not large enough and random enough to get an accurate statistical measurement. The bigger the sample, the more reliable.
15 is 15 times one. I think that was their point. John Jaggers endorsement reflected the views of one Tea Party member.
Very valid point, Janine, as we all know Tea Party members think for themselves. What I found sad is Howie’s e-mail this afternoon with a disturbing subject. He touts a BIG WIN in Loudon county, and the percentages of the win, then proceeding to state Loudon accounts for 35 % of the Primary vote. To the uninformed voter this would appear very impressive indeed, except for a small detail: the sample size of the poll! Having studied advanced statistics myself, that is a manipulation of the numbers by displaying partial data, or in everyday parlance, fudging the numbers. He left a very BIG piece of data out of the equation: the sample size of only 15! I know as reasonable as you are, you cannot believe that the individuals in attendance to your meeting yesterday accurately represent the entire group of registered voters in your county. To then claim that a win in that poll, and the fact that Loudon represents 35% of the primary voters therefore secures him a third of the voters on April 26, which is the intent of that e-mail as I read it, is at best misleading. That is simply not the case with such a small sample size, and a group of like-minded individuals that do not represent the County as a whole. Sorry for getting too technical, perhaps, but I have a bad reaction to manipulated numbers. Howie’s e-mail is an insult to the 10th Congressional District voters. There, I said it.
Here’s a blog on the very point Ryan made above and I did below:
http://jhpolitics.com/2014/04/virginia-10-whole-people-back-lind-in-tea-party-straw-poll/
and Howie’s email from this afternoon is an attempt to paint these results as significant! Read my comment below, his portrayal of the results is beyond the pale.
[…] of course, is that Lind is touting a victory with enough votes to count on both hands, as Jeanine Martin points […]